On loan to The Met The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Tumpline
Unrecorded Ancestral Pueblo artist Native American
Not on view
People used tumplines to carry loads on their backs. Made of soft native cotton or dogbane, they were positioned on the forehead and stout tie-strings were fastened to the load. Artists often painted the tumplines or wove them of mineral- or plant-dyed fibers to create geometric designs. These examples, which have been carbon dated, were almost perfectly preserved by the Southwest’s arid conditions for seven to twelve hundred years.
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